The Five Unnecessaries

Chapter 22 - Part 1

I missed Collin with an ache, kicked myself for my recklessness, and fell asleep, praying he could fall asleep with an echo of a story. Maybe he believed in happy endings enough to know that he would see me again.

Seventy hours later, I stared at a shuttle dashboard. I had just been dropped off on a pristine street with beautiful blue jewels embedded in the sidewalk. The remaining money that Katerina had given me was stowed in my bag.

But that wasn't the reason I was so nervous. I had never been further away from the border. I was in the center of the city, surrounded by people using Elite language I only half recognized. I had to use many phrases and slang just to order food.

I continued downtown, closer to 5th Street and the extravagance I'd only read about. We had little footage of these areas. Even here, I had to stomach the same shallow comments, hearing a woman with black hair, straight but for one curly strand, complaining about their daughter wanting too much attention.

"I have a life!" she exclaimed.

Oh, the irony of that statement.

I resolved to follow her. Her poor child could be days away from being disappeared. I managed to overhear where she was going. Sector 4. It was an extravagant part of the Republic. I was thankful to be dressed as a Citizen. My heart raced as I walked out of the café. It didn't slow down for a few blocks. I kept the woman in view. We were on 4th Street when I reached the point where I was surprised that no one could hear my blood pumping. I concentrated on every detail as if I was dancing: feet low, eyes on phone, look at street, feet low, eyes on phone, look disenchanted, feet low, laugh at message, look interested in someone walking by.

I followed the woman, hoping it was a viable lead and not a dead end. I kept repeating to myself, risking what small faith I had: I was destined to save this girl.

Until I realized I was wrong.

I had almost missed it: a coffee cup from the same café near a box in an alley. As if someone else had made the same trip. I left my target and turned down the alley, hearing my feet crunch on the gravel until I got to the discarded cup. There were footprints around it.

Someone else was going to save her daughter, not me.

That person grabbed my arm and pulled me down behind a box that smelled like rotten eggs.

"What are you doing here?" Cassidy said.

"I heard the mom in the café. What are you doing here?"

"The same. But..." She nodded toward the other side of the street.

The woman with the single curl went into a high-priced house with a red light above the door.

I sighed. "Oh, no. Security?"

"The best," Cassidy said, pocketing her MCU and pulling out her phone. "I'm not sure how much longer Julie has, but her mom sounded annoyed a week ago, when I first saw her."

"Wait," I turned back to Cassidy. "A week?"

"The house is secure. They only take expensive cabs. Erin, the mom, drops Julie off at school, which is monitored. This kid is locked up or shielded everywhere she goes, except none of that effort will keep her safe."

"Okay, but... why are you still here? Following or extracting her at this point would leave you vulnerable. I thought after a week, you needed to find a new target..."

I trailed off, leaving Eric's quote from Intel unfinished. We weren't supposed to engage one target too long if it seemed like it wasn't a high possibility that the mission would be a success. Cassidy had broken the rules.

But it felt way too hypocritical to condemn anyone for that.

"I realize that," Cassidy started, then bit her lip. "It's against protocol and I shouldn't be here—"

"Don't worry about it," I said, changing my tone. "I'm the last person who should be bringing up the rules right now."

She looked at me curiously but didn't ask any questions. I continued, almost apologetically, "I don't want you to get hurt, Cassidy. Do you have a plan?"

She shrugged. "Sort of. I'm kind of hoping that something triggers a possibility for me to intervene." She stared at the house, speaking more to herself than to me. "The first day, Julie wanted a kiss before her mom left. Her mom refused. She was on the doorstep. I should have grabbed her then. But the probability was eighty percent of capture because I was dressed as a Terra. I could bypass the security system, but I'd need a distraction for that as well, and Julie and I still might get caught."

She ran through a few other strategies and probabilities.

"I need to wait it out," she finished, "until Erin is so frustrated that she's ready to let Julie go. Then, I can help Erin with her 'problem' and take Julie and head home."

"How would Erin believe you were able to intervene?"

"Well, I was thinking..." Cassidy said as she pulled out a precise replica of a Society lab worker tag. It had a very distinct, shimmering watermark and featured her picture.

"That's more than thinking. That's awesome! How did you get one?"

"It doesn't matter. It's worthless out of context. These lab workers and doctors, they're Elites. They're loaded. And they almost always have assistants or a driver or someone around them. Being seen by myself would break my cover faster than anything else. But I figured if she's desperate, maybe she won't care, and she'll hand Julie over to me to take to a lab, either to fix or kill."

I sighed, not sure what to do next.

But my guilt faded with one simple insight: I could stay.

"Cassidy, what if you had an assistant?"

"What?" she asked. "You? No, that's not how it works. One Protector, one Unnecessary."

I stepped forward, rolling my eyes. "I must have missed that class. But if one Protector can save two Unnecessaries, two Protectors can save one Unnecessary."

She looked at me, moving her head forward as her mouth gaped open slightly before jolting her head back, making her hair bounce.

"You didn't!"

I smiled at her reaction but turned back to the house, hearing her whisper behind me.

"27, I knew you were going to be fun."